| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 14 February 2005 |
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I can understand low lighting for some of the wooden objects, but the metal and stone objects don't need that. Then again, maybe it was just the contrast with the extremely brightly lit (by the sunshine) totem pole gallery. We didn't even get to the Koerner Ceramics Gallery, which has European ceramics.
The Canadian equivalent to the American (USian?) term 'Native Americans' is 'the First Nations.' This actually makes more sense, since the Navajo (to pick a tribe/people/nation at random) are no more native than we: their ancestors also came from somewhere else, albeit earlier. Okay, much earlier. And people feel the term 'Indian' is confusing and inaccurate, although a survey in the United States showed that more 'Native Americans' actually preferred to be called Indians than Native Americans, though most had as their first choice their particular tribe's name. But 'First Nations' avoids a lot of that. It says that their ancestors were here first, but does not imply that they are completely native to here. And 'First Nations' implies a group of nations, each of which is a group of individuals. So the doubly plural term reminds us that they are many groups, not just one.
In any case, there are about forty distinct nations along the Canadian Pacific coastline. The museum itself is built on Coast Salish (Musqueam) land traditionally used as a lookout site rather than a village. (I assume the guide meant land that had once been occupied by that group; I won't get into whether they currently claim the land or not, since I don't know.) According to the guide, one reason that these people had time for carving totem poles and doing other art is that they were not nomadic and were well-provided with food by the surrounding forest and ocean.
The guide showed us poles from several groups, noting some of the differences among them. The Musqueam had shorter poles and carved in very high-relief (using wood so thick that the animals look as if they were separate and were attached, and only on close examination do you realize that it's all one piece). They also use a very realistic style. The Kwakwaka'wakw have a very stylized and dramatic style. The Haida (Xaadas) retain the curve of tree, carving shallow figures, with everything 'held in' (arms flat against the body, etc.), and oversized heads. Haida and Kwakwaka'wakw poles have interlocking figures, but Tsimshian poles have completely separate figures. Nishga poles have deep, smooth carving.
In addition to tribal differences, there are also individual differences, at least among modern First Nations artists. For example, adze marks are considered practically a signature of artist, and there were examples of the differences in those.
Totem poles are not gods or idols, we were told. They are also not art, and they don't tell a story per se. A pole does tell the lineage and status of the chief who commissioned it (only a chief could commission a pole) and the images that could be used were very 'regulated' (in the sense of having to follow certain rules). It seems to me to be in a sense like heraldry. The guide seemed reticent to try to explain what a particular totem pole meant or was saying, but did say that perhaps the bottom image would be from the chief's background, the next one up from his wife's, then the next one from his, etc. She did say that the top tells us the chief's status, with rings around it or the figures on it indicate how many potlatches the chief has given. The totem poles were mostly painted, although in the Pacific Northwest climate the paint doesn't last long. There are also songs and dances to go with them. A flat back on a pole indicates it was an exterior poles designed to go against a house. Interior poles have indentations at top for the beams. There are also welcome, memorial, and mortuary poles.
The figures represented are animal, human, and supernatural. One often sees figures in transformation-for example, a bird, but near the beak is a human hand and arm, then feathers, then a human leg.
Some people think that the poles were not made until after European metal tools arrived. This might be when the Spaniards started trading offshore 1774, or when other Europeans arrived in the early 1800s. The Russians seem not to have gotten this far south. In answer to someone's question, the guide said that the museum tries to determine the provenance of the pieces, and does have a policy of repatriation (which goes slowly), although sometimes people want the pieces to stay in the protected environment of the museum.
We also heard about potlatches. Potlatches given to celebrate specific event that has just happened and are used to re-affirm the family's history. They are also used to pass down traditional songs, dances, and names. The idea was for the chief to amass a lot of wealth over a period of two or three years, then throw a party for several hundred people, lasting two or three weeks, and giving it all away as gifts, though these days it's usually from about noon Saturday until early morning Sunday. It sounds a bit like a Long Island bar mitzvah.
Missionaries tried to encourage the men of the area to carve for the tourist market, but everyone still worked for the potlatch. So eventually the potlatch was banned for almost seventy years in order to prevent the spread of diseases. The reasoning was that with such a large gathering, one person with smallpox could infect two or three villages. Of course, it wasn't large gatherings that were banned, just potlatches, and I'm sure if the same people decided to get together for a huge church meeting, no one would have objected. Another, less stated, goal was the idea that the people should be doing something more productive than making things to give away; they should make them to sell instead.
The Masterpiece Gallery contained smaller items made from gold, silver, stone, or wood. The silver came from European and later American coins, as there is none in the area. The guide pointed out an argilite carving with what she said were European images, a house, a woman in European dress, and even a camera. Since the piece was dated circa 1840 and there were no camera until around 1860, and even then they didn't look like the 'camera' in this piece, I think she may have been confused.
There was a large collection of Hamatsa dance masks (part of Kwakwaka'wakw culture), though the guide noted that only three or four would be used at any one time. These were red, black, and white, and represented supernatural birds. This was the beginning of the 'visible storage,' like the museum of pottery we visited in Lima. While it's great if you have a specific area of interest and want to see those pieces, for the casual browser or even the average museum-goer the effect is a bit overwhelming.
The guide also explained how bentwood boxes are made and then finished up at Bill Reid's sculpture 'The Raven and the First Men.' This is the depiction of the following Haida legend: 'The great flood, which had covered the earth for so long, had at last receded and the sand of Rose Spit (Haida Gwaii) lay dry. Raven walked along the sand, eyes and ears alert for any unusual sight or sound to break the monotony. A flash of white caught his eye, and there, right at his feet, half buried in the sand, was a gigantic clamshell. He looked more closely and saw that the shell was full of little creatures cowering in terror in his enormous shadow. He leaned his great head close and, with his smooth trickster's tongue, coaxed and cajoled and coerced them to come and play in his wonderful new shiny world. These little dwellers were the original Haidas, the first humans.'
There are a couple of things to note about this. What is most obvious is the use of the 'trickster,' who seems common to almost all mythologies. But something else not obvious is that Reid needed permission to create this sculpture and tell the story explaining it. The First Nations do not want other people to tell their stories and perhaps mis-tell them, so they own the copyright to them, or at least there is some such concept. The extended quote above is Reid's version of the origin, authorized by Haida elders.
The sculpture itself is made of over a hundred pieces of yellow cedar laminated together, and the figures have a range of ages and expressions, which is innovative for First Nation work. It is a larger version of his earlier 'Raven Discovering Mankind in the Clam Shell.' The latter is a few inches across; the former is at least ten feet.
There was also an exhibit produced by students at the university on the use of First Nation art and images in commercial work and especially in souvenirs. Mark thought this a little too political to be in a museum; I'm not so sure. There was a video of First Nations people talking about this and though one said, 'It's not art, it's not trinkets, it's not a souvenir; it's my culture,' they all called it 'art' anyway. And where does culture end and art begin?
Being an anthropology museum rather than just a museum of British Columbia, there were some unrelated exhibits: one on the position of the cow in India, one on South Asian women in Canada, and several aisles in the visible storage devoted to items from the rest of the world. There was a small section talking about Sikhs, both their background and their current cultural clashes regarding wearing the kirpan and the turban. The former conflicts with airline security regulations; the latter with motorcycle helmet laws.
We had lunch at a stand outside run by a restaurant that specializes in native food and shared a buffalo burger and a smoked salmon (not lox!) sandwich. Oh, and two Cokes, which I don't think count as native food.
After this we saw the outside portion of the museum: two houses build in the traditional style and several totem poles, then walked over to the M. Y .Williams Geological Museum. This is a rather small (one large room) but does have a lambeosaurus skeleton and a set of giant elk antlers.
By now it was 3 PM, so rather than try to do the Maritime Museum (which would close at 5 PM), we decided to go back to Robson Street and do some shopping. We stopped in Eaton's (the major Canadian department store) and picked up a tchatchka. (We have the custom of picking up a small souvenir for each country or region that we visit. It needs to be small, cheap, typical of the area, and something a local would buy.) It's difficult to think of something Canadian that fits that description, but we settled on a small tin of maple syrup. (In Slovenia we ended up getting a bag of paprika, so this wasn't the first time we were this desperate.)
My main stop on Robson was Duthie's, the big independent bookstore in Vancouver. They now have ten stores, and their main store on Robson isn't even their largest. Their selection is good, and the staff helpful, but I had hoped for a better selection than is available back home, or at least different. But for whatever reason, they seem to have almost entirely American (USian) books and very few British ones. It seems to me that when we were in Detroit in the 1970s that Canadian bookstores had a fair selection of British books, so I'm not sure what has changed.
We went into a few other stores, included one called 'The Tacki Shop.' It was.
After going back to the hotel and resting for about an hour, we went out again to dinner at the Saigon Restaurant. We had Chicken Gran-Mere and Seafood Curry Hotpot-very good. We then rode the bus the long way back (to see more of the city, though it was mostly streets we had been on already).
July 26: We finished packing, then had breakfast at the Bread Garden before checking out and checking our bags.
We walked down to the beach and headed west toward Stanley Park, which began only a few blocks from the hotel. There is a five-and-a-half mile walk around the park along the seawall, and while we didn't go all the way to the end, what with getting there and back we probably walked six miles.
It wasn't very crowded at this hour, even though it was Saturday. We saw a couple of Great Blue Herons, and a lot of seagulls and ravens. |
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